One of the great new wave/early MTV records, She's So Unusual is a giddy mix of self-confidence, effervescent popcraft, unabashed sentimentality, subversiveness, and clever humor. In short, it's a multifaceted portrait of a multifaceted talent, an artist that's far more clever than her thin, deliberately girly voice would indicate. Then again, Lauper's voice suits her musical persona, since its chirpiness adds depth, or reconfigures the songs, whether it's the call to arms of "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" or the tearjerking "Time After Time." Lauper is at her very best on the first side, all of which were singles or received airplay, and this collection of songs -- "Money Changes Everything," "Girls," "When You Were Mine," "Time," "She Bop," "All Through the Night" -- is astonishing in its consistency, so strong that it makes the remaining tracks -- all enjoyable, but rather pedestrian -- charming by their association with songs so brilliantly alive. If Lauper couldn't maintain this level of consistency, it's because this captured her persona better than anyone could imagine -- when a debut captures a personality so well, let alone a personality so tied to its time, the successive work can't help but pale in comparison. Still, when it's captured as brightly and brilliantly as it is here, it does result in a debut that retains its potency, long after its production seems a little dated.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Competing nicely with the earlier Time After Time: The Best of Cyndi Lauper, Columbia/Legacy's The Essential Cyndi Lauper features most of the '80s icon's big hits as well as lesser-known album tracks. Considering the inconsistent nature of Lauper's albums, it is nice to find tracks like "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and "True Colors" packaged alongside "Sisters of Avalon" and "Who Let in the Rain." Most Lauper fans will already own these songs, but for casual fans, The Essential Cyndi Lauper will do the trick.© Matt Collar /TiVo

Regrettably bypassing the Top Ten hit "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough," Twelve Deadly Cyns features almost all of Cyndi Lauper's Top 40 hits, tacking on a handful of new tracks at the end, including "Hey Now (Girls Still Wanna Have Fun)," an updated version of her breakthrough hit single, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." As hits collections go, the album is fine, but with the exception of the ballad "True Colors" and the pop confection "Change of Heart," all of her finest songs and biggest hits were on She's So Unusual, which is a more consistent and entertaining album.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Cyndi Lauper looks back at her hits on The Body Acoustic, with a number of guests including Adam Lazzara, Shaggy, Sarah McLachlan, Vivian Green, Ani DiFranco, and Jeff Beck. Conceptually, this looks like a disaster. Alanis Morissette did it as well and the results were mixed at best. But Lauper has always possessed a talent that goes beyond the material she has sung -- and she can sing anything. The album is produced by Lauper with Rick Chertoff and William Wittman -- who recorded and mixed the disc. Lauper's band is a wide and varied assortment that includes contemporary jazz bassist Mark Egan. "Money Changes Everything," with Lazzara, is a down-home calypso and country ramble. "All Through the Night," with Shaggy, begins as an Appalachian folk tune until Shaggy begins toasting and Lauper shifts it into ballad gear. It's a conflicting set of styles that's held together in the genuine ache of her voice. "Time After Time" would be a beautiful song in anybody's hands. Here, with McLachlan, she goes down into the tune's lyrics and abandons the drama of the original for the intimacy of its words. The human heart becomes the interlocutor of memory and loss. Lauper and McLachlan trade verses as 12-strings, muted drums, and space define the place where lost love becomes the center of the question of devotion across time and space. "She Bop" is almost a blues song, and as a result it reveals deep eroticism as the pleasures and sweet release of masturbation fall from the singer's voice like raw honey. And so it goes with "Above the Clouds," as Beck's trademark biting tone is juxtaposed against piano and space. This is a ballad that actually hurts. Its drama is realized in Lauper's phrasing and Beck's playing bites harder accentuating it -- relaxed, slow, and deeply emotive. "Sisters of Avalon" features soul chanteuse Green and DiFranco. It's funky as hell. Deep roiling bass pops and drones with acoustic guitars, fiddles, and a dulcimer moving through and around it. The drums fall just behind the beat as the singer goes for the crack in the lyrical spine of the track. The chorus-like refrain punches up its drama. Green takes her verse before an instrumental slide guitar interlude, and her wailing voice makes it among the album's best. Lauper sings without friends on a number of cuts as well, such as the beautiful "Colors" and the stunning "Fearless." This may be a slanted look at a greatest-hits package, but it comes off as an entirely new album full of adventure, grit, polish, and soul.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

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